1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer information gathering and processing systems, and more particularly to a computer-based system and apparatus for monitoring, recording, and reporting vehicle radio listener statistics.
2. Related Art
In today's competitive business environment, it is common for advertisers, marketers, business concerns and the like to desire to gauge the likes and dislikes of the general public. It is important to successful business endeavors to have some measure of the public's reaction to a business concern's products and services. This fundamental principle of business is no less true in the radio broadcasting industry. That is, in the radio world, monitoring broadcasts and determining the demographics of listeners is essential to running a successful broadcasting business. Radio advertising executives exert a significant amount of energy searching for more detailed information to guide their marketing investment, which in 1999 exceeded $17.6 billion dollars. Also, station owners are in the same search for information to guide their programming and on-air talent scheduling.
Arbitron, Inc. of New York, N.Y. currently offers a radio listener statistical gathering and reporting service (i.e., a rating service). Arbitron rates broadcasts based on the listening audience tuned into a particular station on a quarterly basis. This rating, unlike rating services for television broadcast done by Nielsen Media Research, Inc. of New York, N.Y., is not done in real time. Over the past fifty years, the conventional (Arbitron) method of providing these statistics is from a network of paper diaries maintained by thousands of listeners in markets across the United States.
More specifically, the Arbitron process collects paper questionnaires via random sampling of a market. Thus, for a given market, a certain percentage of the population is randomly selected and called. The calls are generated by random number dialing. Those persons who are contacted via the telephone are then asked if they are willing to participate in the Arbitron diary process. If the person agrees, Arbitron then sends that person a paper diary. The diary consists of three types of questions: (1) What did you listen to? (2) When did you listen to it? (3) Where were you when you listened to it? The participants are asked to collect this information and write it down in the provided diary over a seven-day period. At the end of that seven-day period, the diary is sent back to Arbitron. This process is repeated until a statistically relevant number of diaries are collected in the given market.
Many in the radio industry view this system as outdated and inadequate. This is because the statistical output lacks depth and the months-long lag time for receiving reports. The process is also vulnerable to bias and fraud. That is, if a participant prefers a specific station, they (intentionally or unintentionally) may fill the diary in a way that favors that particularly radio station. Further, if a person with fraudulent intentions obtains one or more diaries and skews them towards a particular station, this compromises the statistical integrity of the process. Despite these current limitations, in 1999, over $169 million dollars was spent by various broadcasters and other subscribers for listener statistics because alternative rating sources are not available.
In an attempt to overcome the above-described shortcomings, Arbitron has recently developed and is currently testing a “Portable People Meter” (PPM) system. The PPM is a pager-sized device that is worn or carried by survey participants throughout the day to collect radio listening statistics. The PPM, however, still faces several shortcomings such as lack of in-depth information recorded, contaminated data due to stray broadcast signals, expense of installing PPM signal embedding devices in multiple broadcast points, and skewed data due to visual presence of the PPM device on survey participants. Another shortcoming is that the PPM system's statistical integrity depends on survey participants actually wearing, activating, and periodically returning the PPM device to a base cradle to upload its stored information and re-charge its batteries.
Further, apparatus to monitor the selected radio station within a vehicle are known. These apparatus typically employ one of two know methods for detecting the tuned radio station. One method, known as a “sniffer” method, involves tuning the receiver to the local radio phase lock loop (PLL) and then calculating the tuned frequency by knowing the intermediate frequency (IF). The second method, known as a “comparator” method, involves comparing output audio signals from the speaker port to a (known) reference audio signal (i.e., a pre-selected radio station). Then, if the two signals are in phase, the tuned radio station can be identified. Both methods, however, suffer from shortcomings.
The sniffer method's shortcomings include the fact that different radio manufacturers have different IF frequencies (i.e., there are no standards for IF frequencies), and that some radio manufacturers do not have local PLL for AM radio stations, which makes them impossible to measure. The comparator method's shortcomings include the fact that it takes too much time (i.e., typically ten seconds or more) to find the selected station—which is disadvantageous if the vehicle's occupants have subsequently changed stations again.
A system that comprehensively monitors broadcasts and determines the demographics of listeners on a real time, or near real time, basis has not previously existed. Nor has an apparatus that automatically detects the selected radio station through a speaker port as part of that comprehensive system. Therefore, given the above, what is needed is a real-time system for obtaining, monitoring, recording and reporting comprehensive radio listener statistics which includes an apparatus that automatically detects the selected radio station.